"
"You will find the street a school, though of a different kind, in which
you can learn valuable lessons. If you can get time in the evening,
however, it will be best to keep up your school studies."
"I am doing that now, sir."
"That is well. And now, about the shirts. Did your mother say how long
it would take her to make them?"
"About three weeks, I think, sir. Will that be soon enough?"
"That will do. Perhaps it will be well, however, to bring half the
number whenever they are finished."
"All right, sir."
"I suppose your mother can cut them out if I send a shirt as a pattern?"
"Yes, sir."
Mr. Preston rose, and, going to a bureau, took therefrom a shirt which
he handed to Paul. He then wrote a few lines on a slip of paper, which
he also handed our hero.
"That is an order on Barclay & Co.," he explained, "for the requisite
materials. If either you or your mother presents it, they will be given
you."
"Very good, sir," said Paul.
He took his cap, and prepared to go.
"Good-evening, Mr. Preston," he said.
"Good-evening. I shall expect you with the shirts when they are ready."
Paul went downstairs and into the street, thinking that Mr. Preston was
very sociable and agreeable. He had fancied that rich men were generally
"stuck up," but about Mr. Preston there seemed an absence of all
pretense. Paul's ambition was aroused when he thought of the story he
had heard, and he wondered whether it would be possible for him to raise
himself to wealth and live in as handsome a house as Mr.
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